Page 10 - CEGE Magazine Fall 2023

TEACHING
INSPIRED AND INNOVATIVE ENGINEERS OF THE FUTURE
Training inspired and innovative engineers requires inspired and innovative teaching. Here we share with you some of our new classes and programs that are inspiring CEGE graduates
A Circularity Revolution
After years of research and talk, it is time to finally move circularity into the mainstream.
Novak and a team of engineering and policy professors from the University of Minnesota wanted to step up to address the circularity challenge. An NSF grant
of $3 million established a
graduate training program that
gives Novak and her colleagues a
chance to test out their ideas. Their
hope is to move concepts and practices of circularity into our social consciousness.
As part of the larger program to train graduate students,
Paige Novak, Bill Arnold, and artist Gudrun Lock developed
a class, A Circularity Revolution: Working to Close the Loop on Global Issues, which is open to graduate and undergraduate students across the University. This course teaches concepts and methods focused on reuse, upcycling, recycling, efficiency, and an overall movement toward zero waste. This course
and the associated NSF-funded graduate student trainee program on circularity combine engineering, public policy, and perspective-taking stimulated by the arts and solving problems in partnership with community. Activities encourage students to examine their perspectives and interrogate applications
of engineering principles.
The course teaches students fundamental scientific information about systems thinking, mass balances, and resource recovery; and helps students look at various cultural viewpoints and their own perspectives and identity to determine how these affect their understanding and approach to challenges and workable solutions.
New Course Widens Road to Transportation Engineering
Michael Levin and Raphael Stern usually teach advanced classes on transportation theory. Now they have teamed up to share their transportation passion
with a broad group of first-year students. In the spring of 2024, Stern and Levin will launch CEGE 1201 Emerging Technologies in Transportation: Automated and Electric Vehicles.
“Prof. Stern and I wanted to teach a course on automated vehicles (AVs); yet we felt it was premature
as a core class given the still-emerging technology,” said Michael Levin. “The topic works well for an introductory
class for first-year students. It allows us to draw on a hot topic that is interesting to students and expose students to issues and methods in transportation engineering with an automation/ electrification lens.”
Stern and Levin were inspired to develop this course because of the exciting things happening in transportation engineering now; electrification and automation could change how society thinks about transportation. In addition, everyone uses our transportation system, even if they just walk on sidewalks, ride bikes, and cross highways. Everyone has some understanding of our transportation system. And now most cars have some aspect of automation, like lane keeping or cruise control.
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